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Addict says she is not a 'monster,' wants another chance
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Katie Grist wants people to know she is many things. She is a mother, a daughter, a former high-school softball player and a heroin addict.
But one thing she says she is not is a monster, she said in a letter from the Mahoning County jail to a reporter while asking for an interview to tell her side of the story.
She was arrested during a roundup of heroin dealers and users earlier this summer.
“I have a job. I have a fiance. I have a child, but I can’t take care of any of that,” Grist said from inside the jail.
Grist, 29, of Market Street, is facing four fourth-degree felony counts of possession of heroin and a single fifth-degree felony count of the same charge. She was one of more than 30 people rounded up in July by law enforcement for their suspected roles in the ring.
While police were focusing on dealers, they also indicted several drug users as well. Grist was one of those users, with a long record of drug-related offenses dating back to 2004. In common pleas court alone, she has had cases in 2005, 2008, 2011, 2012 and 2015.
She has spent time behind bars in both the county jail and state prison. Because of her most-recent arrest, she faces probation-violation hearings before two common pleas judges and one county court judge.
While she acknowledges her criminal record, she also is quick to say no crimes of violence show up in her record. There are hardly any drug cases, either. Records show her offenses are theft- or burglary-related because she was forced to steal to get money to support her heroin habit.
“It’s not right,” Grist said. “Had I not been on drugs, I never would’ve been able to do those things.”
Grist said she has tried several times to kick her habit and is currently clean, but she has not been able to stay sober for the long term.
Court-ordered treatment has not worked, and often she ends up relapsing and being sent back to jail because she cannot complete her treatment.
She said she was in treatment before she was arrested this summer at a private facility, which she was able to afford because of the Affordable Care Act and had been off drugs for seven months. She said when she knew a warrant was out for her arrest, she turned herself in.
“I still stayed clean,” said Grist from the jail. “I didn’t use. I didn’t run.”
She had a job and said her employer has promised to hold her job for her. She said she has never had a chance at rehab, but when reminded she has been sent to drug treatment several times, she said she could understand if people would take exception to her opinion.
“At times, I feel like the system has given up on me,” she said.
Grist said whenever she has been in court, the only rehab she has received was through the Community Corrections Association on Market Street. She said she was hoping she would not be sent back there because she never completes the program there.
Court records show that Grist has been ordered to take part in CCA’s in-house treatment program six times – in 2005, 2007, 2008 and three times in 2011. David Stillwagon, CCA’s chief executive officer, said it is not uncommon for people to be sent to CCA several times before the treatment program takes effect.
He said while CCA can provide the treatment and means to stay sober for people, it is ultimately the people themselves who decide if they will remain sober.
“They’re going to get out of it what they put into it,” Stillwagon said.
Martin Desmond, an assistant Mahoning County prosecutor, who prosecutes many drug cases, said cost is often the most-prohibitive issue in getting someone court-ordered treatment. He also said determinants of where he will recommend someone be sent include strictness of the program and success rates.
One thing addicts who are going through recovery have to do is stay away from people, places and things that force them to take drugs, he said. The “people, places and things” mantra is common among addicts and recovery specialists alike.
Grist said one time she was sober she ended up using again because she broke the mantra. She said she tried to help friends who were using heroin and after awhile, she started taking it again.
“That’s why I messed up,” Grist said. “I knew better, but I had a hard time turning my back.”
CCA has a four- to six-month in-house program for people trying to break their addiction. Stillwagon said it is important for people who complete that part of the program to continue with their treatment, such as by attending meetings or getting a sponsor.
Grist said she first began using drugs in high school, after her sophomore year, when she was a catcher for the Springfield High softball team. She started with pills before moving on to opiates in the form of oxycontin, a pain killer. A big factor in her use was the death of three friends in a car crash when she was 15.
She said she first tried heroin when she was 18, after she gave birth to a daughter, because she couldn’t get oxycontin anymore. She said she was afraid to use it “because of all the stories” she had heard and stared at it for an hour before she snorted her first dose.
“I had no idea what it would do to me,” Grist said.
The craving for a heroin addict is constant, she added.
“You fall asleep thinking about it, and you wake up sick to your stomach,” Grist said.
Grist said one thing that worries her is one of the probation violations she faces is for a burglary charge. She could be sent to a maximum-security prison for women in Dayton because burglary is considered a crime of violence, she said. There, she would be under lockdown for 21 hours daily.
She said no matter what happens, she wants to continue her treatment.
“I can do time. I know how to do that,” Grist said. “What I don’t know how to do is live confidently without drugs.”